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"I did not," he said. I tried to apologize, but now I do it
before all ministers. This man was one of our top-flight ministers,
Mr. Ron Dart.
Fellow ministers, perhaps any one of us can be caught off guard
and say something that reflects unjustly against another.
This has been done -- and NOT by being caught off guard
in
disseminating character assassination against Mr. Stanley R. Rader.
Friday he brought me a memorandum he had written to me. Among
other things he said, "It was only last year in May that I discovered
for the first time how vicious and totally unchristian was •.• an ...
effort to destroy my reputation within the Church of the Living God.
At that time, even you suggested that perhaps you had done me a
grea.t disservice in not advising me earlier of his efforts to defame
me and to destroy my ability to serve you and the living God....
"}\.gain, however, when you were forced to admit to me only a few
months ago that ... efforts /to defame Mr. Rader/ were so widespread
that you could not defend me� according to some-ministers, without
doing yourself and your credibility damage ••••"
I had at that time told Mr. Rader that the same source had
sought to destroy my credibility to the extent that I felt I could
more effectively correct this character assassination of Mr. Rader
if I waited a couple or three months until my own credibility had
been restored. Whether that was the proper and wise course or not,
I will hesitate no longer.
I say to you ministers, some (I know not whether only a few or
many) have listened to this deliberate character assassination to
the extent that two ministers, stationed in the eastern part of the
United States, told me over the telephone about three months ago,
that if I sent out a letter I had confidentially read to them, which
I had written to clear Mr. Rader's good name, many in the ministry
would turn against me -- at a time when God's Church ·sorely needed
their support as Jesus Christ, living HEAD of God's Church, was
putting, through me, His Church back on the right track.
Perhaps I was wrong in delaying what I now write.
regardless of consequences, I should have righted this
I felt the delay was needful IN THE CHURCH'S INTEREST.
wrong in not speaking out sooner, I apologize.
Perhaps,
gross wrong.
If I was
This evil speaking, character assassination, and destructive
gossip HAS GOT TO BE STAMPED ou·r OF GOD' s CHURCH!
Fellow ministers, LISTEN TO ME!
I don't know how many of you have accepted without question this
slanderous attack against Mr. Rader. Apparently it has taken root
(as I sincerely hope} ONLY among the Ministry, and the lay members
apparently think well of Mr. Rader.
But I feel, as Mr. Rader said to me some three months ago, that
the scurrilous attack against his character was, IN FACT, an attempt